


Victims of Circumstance - 15/20 – In the Wild

by motsureru



Series: Victims of Circumstance [15]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-19
Updated: 2008-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motsureru/pseuds/motsureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2. This is a <b><span>sequel</span> </b>to <i>Any Other Night</i>, which is a <b><span>sequel</span></b> to <i>Broken Glass. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Victims of Circumstance - 15/20 – In the Wild

**Author's Note:**

> An enormous amount of thanks to [](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/profile)[**etoile_dunord**](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/), who edits my commas and makes me happy doing it.

**Teaser _:_** _Sylar had discovered what Mohinder came to realize moments before his body hit the floor._

  
  


.15In the Wild

 

A laboratory was a laboratory was a laboratory if Mohinder Suresh was not inside it. As Sylar sat in Sebastian’s chair, listening to his and Mohinder’s footsteps disappearing around the corner to the stairwell, he considered for a moment that perhaps he should not, in fact, dare to snoop through Sebastian’s computer files. What if he found nothing, and Mohinder returned, angrier than days before? He looked around the laboratory, at its empty white surfaces, and then turned his gaze back to the screen before him.

Now was not the time for second guesses.

A sea of folders and documents passed before Sylar’s eyes, and then those lids narrowed in decision. He had one chance, only one, to prove that Sebastian was something other than what he seemed. He had to take it. Sylar told himself he had only to dig a little deeper, find the right document, to see into truth behind the man he so distrusted.

With a short smile, Sylar began to navigate quickly, drawing up each file he found, searching with what skills he could into the chaos of Sebastian Godard’s work. As with most tasks involving inanimate things, Sylar had an endless amount of patience to delve fully into his work. 

What Sylar found was a surprising amount of intricacy in the chaos, far more confusing and haphazard than what he knew Mohinder had on his own computer, and Sylar had to use his enhanced memory increasingly to remember what he’d opened already so he could get to what he really wanted. What he wanted was the research from before Mohinder’s arrival; he wanted to see the man that Sebastian had been before Orléans, before he was the smiling face and friendly personality that Mohinder had come to trust.

He found the file soon enough: Sanjog Iyer. The boy that had started this entire escapade, the boy responsible for Mohinder’s meeting with Mira, responsible for their new life in France. Should Sylar thank his memory for bringing them closer together? Sylar frowned softly as he clicked the directory. Another wave of files was before his eyes, each arranged in a series of eight-digit numbers. One icon, an image of the Earth, stood out from all the rest, and it was that one Sylar decided to click. The was a sudden shudder across the screen as it turned to black, and a series of dates began to scroll down, filling the screen with neon letters against their dark surface. 

He’d found it.

Sylar eyed each date warily, searching, and finally clicked the earliest one, dated some five or six months prior. It was nothing important; marks of plane tickets and arrivals, hotel locations that indicated Sebastian had come to Chennai. Sylar clicked down further- notes on meetings, a name here and there, records of surrounding laboratories… But then there it was, there was the next piece of the puzzle. The next file, the file that made Sylar sit back in his seat, lips parting and pulse jumping. This date, this one, had everything he needed to know.

 

_Sanjog Iyer injected;strain 157._

_Symptoms prevalent within seven hours._

 

Sylar had discovered what Mohinder came to realize moments before his body hit the floor: Sanjog had not developed the virus naturally at all. But only Sylar would come to know in that instant that this was not at all a surprise to Doctor Sebastian Godard.

“I’ve-”

“-got me, Mister Sylar,” a familiar voice concluded.

Sylar pushed back the chair and stood instantly, eyes quick enough to the door to see that the familiar voice matched a familiar face. Sebastian Godard stood leaning against the door frame, smiling a smile that remained ever friendly. But his eyes told a different story. They stayed firmly on Sylar as he stepped inside with a quick flutter of his white lab coat, closing the door behind himself.

“I take it you’ve discovered something very interesting, Mister Sylar. My computer has many interesting things on it. I do a lot of interesting things,” Sebastian commented, almost mockingly, as he calmly walked farther into the room. His pallid complexion and white-blonde hair made him look almost like a ghost in that moment; he walked with an air of removal from all around him, his eyes the only living things set within his face.

A distinctly lethal look came over Sylar, and he faced Sebastian with his own eyes narrowing, brow furrowed deeply into a fierce scowl. His hatred for this man bubbled inside him, waiting for a proper time of release. “Oh yes, I’ve found out some very useful information about you, Doctor Godard. You killed that boy in India. You infected him with the virus. I knew you were a killer all along.”

Sebastian raised his pale eyebrows in mock surprise, crossing his arms casually over his chest. He seemed markedly unimpressed by that information. “Is that so?”

Sylar tilted his head a little to the side, voice low and perilous as he approached Sebastian. “Oh yes. We know our own kind. Only you’re worse. You work for the Company.” Sylar practically spat the name, old hatred for what Bennet had done to him swelling freshly like a scar tingling in remembrance. Sylar stopped a mere few feet from Sebastian, gazing darkly into his green eyes.

Laughing softly at that, Sebastian shook his head. “And that makes me worse than you? You really do surprise me, Mister Sylar. You and your twisted morals. Your twisted justification for your deeds. I imagine they only became more screwed up when you fell in love, when you needed to justify something more obscene than your killing: _not_ killing.”

The mention of the word ‘love’ seemed to strike something untouched in Sylar, and his expression flashed for an instant into fear. He turned his head sharply to the side, stretching his gift and listening to the floor below- but he could not hear Mohinder’s distinctive heartbeat anywhere. A measure of pure, unadulterated rage passed though Sylar, and he shot his hand out to Sebastian’s throat, slamming the man’s body back against the counter violently.

“Where is Mohinder?!” Sylar demanded, fingers tense and shaking, fingernails digging into that weak flesh. He bent the man back against the counter uncomfortably, forcing Sebastian’s head down to hit the cold countertop.

Sebastian did not even let out a startled noise as he was thrown back, but instead paused a moment and then began to laugh, began to let his shoulders shake with resounding peals of amusement. “You’ve lost him, have you? Oh, how _terribly_ tragic…” Sebastian’s voice took on a mocking tone again, as though meant for a child, and his expression twisted into a false pout as he spoke. “You don’t seem to have any direction in your poor little life without the dear doctor guiding your every step.” 

The result was Sylar’s fist making a sharp snap when it landed squarely in Sebastian’s face, cracking his nose and bouncing the man’s skull with a resounding crunch against the counter beneath it. Sylar shook Sebastian as the pale man finally cried out, coughing as his nose poured blood that slipped backwards into his throat and out over the sides of his face. With a flicker of his hand, Sylar cut the lights within the room, leaving only echoes of illumination from the surrounding windows facing the hallway.

“You’ll tell me _everything_ , Sebastian Godard. EVERYTHING! What have you done with Mohinder?!” Sylar growled out the words even as he shouted them, yanking the man forward and throwing him roughly to the floor.

Sebastian’s body skidded across the tiles for a moment, and he continued for several moments to cough up blood as Sylar hovered over him, fists clenched. The scientist pulled himself up on an elbow, wiping the blood messily from his nose, and gazed up at Sylar’s deadly figure. Suddenly he began to laugh again, cackling through his breaths and blood, crimson staining his teeth and misting his clothing.

“He’s still alive, Mister Sylar… still alive… Are you going to save him? Beat it out of me…?” Sebastian grinned, a glimmer of the insane peeking through that blood-stained face. Yet, even so, every word seemed calculated and shrewd. Sylar knew then that this man would give him nothing. This man would laugh in his face until Sylar squeezed the last breath from his body. And he had every intention of taking that last breath from his body now.

Sylar walked forward, holding out a hand. His telekinetic hold forced Sebastian flat against the floor with a loud, painful smack. The shadow across Sylar’s face was hardly a match to the darkness inside, and he stood over Sebastian with a furious sneer forming on his lips. “You’re not afraid to die, Sebastian… Either because you believe in your cause that much… or because you have something to hide.”

There was silence from Sebastian at first, Sylar’s words only equaled by a continuing grin, wide and wild. Sebastian lowered his eyelids and looked to the side, amusement never fading from his lips even as he deferred the question to silence.

“An ability,” Sylar breathed the words beneath his breath like a prayer, something feral lighting in his eyes. A smirk spread across Sylar’s lips that felt like home, and he shook his head slowly in disbelief. After all this time… after all this waiting… Sylar was going to kill again. There was no need for fear, here, no worry or panic about repercussions and lectures from Mohinder; this death was going to be a glorious, fantastic surrender to his love. The blood that would flow between his fingers was not going to be for himself, but for Mohinder. He’d not take the ability selfishly, but to release Mohinder from a danger and himself from the denial of so many longings. The very thought felt liberating. It crawled beneath his skin and begged to burst forth.

“You’re an intelligent man, Mister Sylar,” Sebastian began, voice softening as he took his breaths between small chokes on his own blood. “We’ve always known that. Your cunning, combined with the limitless potential of your ability, has left us incredibly interested in you. That’s why the Company would love to take you in. You and Mohinder both. We could use skills like yours,” he breathed out, a small plead in his still unruly eyes. “We could offer you protection. Guidance. An _outlet..._ ”

But Sylar only shook his head slowly. “I don’t plan on being used ever again, thank you very much, Doctor Godard.” Sylar leaned over carefully, eyes locked on Sebastian’s as he lowered his voice. “But I’ll be sure to give the Company my condolences once you’re dead and Mohinder is mine again. It was a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Godard. We’ll have to have a drink next time.” 

Sylar lifted his hand, extending his index finger. Standing for a moment as Death Himself, Sylar pointed that judgment at Sebastian Godard, and with the resonant sound of agonized screams, Sylar began to cut across the man’s forehead. He watched as Sebastian’s features twisted in undeniable anguish and suffering, enduring every last second that Sylar drew out to its fullest, carving his mark of Death into the man’s head. Sylar reveled in watching the skin peel away from the cut and ooze crimson tears from within. He relished in the soft mist of bone being sawed so precisely. He had almost forgotten how hypnotic, how elegant it could be, when one appreciated the art of Death. Sylar smiled.

Eventually, Sebastian’s cries became hoarse, airy efforts of torn vocal chords, and Sylar dared not even blink, soaking in the sound of his pain like the most fine and ambient of sunbeams warming his flesh and heart. Sylar watched as the man’s eyes reeled back into his head, as his jaw slackened and desisted, unable to cry out any more. The mask of Death was an unpleasant one, but even the most hideous of monsters still had its beauty. Mohinder had taught Sylar that; Mohinder had come to love one of those monsters. Sylar reminded himself of that as he watched Sebastian’s life slip further away, until it was finally gone and missed by none.

There was an empty echo across the tile as the skull fell away, rolling across the floor through the puddle of deep crimson blood that had gathered beneath them. Sylar smiled in satisfaction, gazing at the item with a sense of nostalgic affection. He pressed a hand down into the pool of thick blood next to the man to steady himself and grabbed Sebastian’s body by the red-stained lab coat, pulling it up and towards him.

Then time stopped.

Time stopped for Sylar, for Gabriel Gray, for any and every part of this man that had decided to kill for Mohinder. Time stopped to allow Sylar’s eyes to widen in disbelief.

Time stopped because, when Sylar gazed down into the remains of Sebastian Godard’s skull, the inside was already hollow.

 


End file.
